Pages

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tis the Season

As the beauty of Autumn brings in the arachnids (shudder)... So the joy of Spring brings the bees. Generally there is some sort of scare regarding "killer bees" although we've yet to see them in the PNW and I haven't heard of them this year...

Me and bees have never really gotten along. Not by my doing of course. I tried to make peace with a bee from the very beginning. When I was about 6 years old my friend and I found a "dead" bee and thought he needed a proper burial. While my friend went in to grab a spoon (for shoveling dirt) I held the poor bee on my thumb.

"Not all bees sting" I told my friend. In this case I was wrong. The little devil was playing us the whole time. He stung my thumb and flew away... (I could go on about how I decided this is where fingerprints come from.... but I won't)

I wish I could share a picture with you of the following summer when I swatted a bee away from my ear and he came right around and stung me on the bottom lip... that's a picture worth seeing. :)

Love the picture and the story with it. When I was a kid my sister and I were playing in the woods and one of us lifted a board and all the sudden all these bees started attacking us and my sister took off running and I was swatting away bees and she ran to the house and we happened to have Jehovas Witness people doing their rounds and one of them came running and carried me out. I like to enjoy bees at a distance!

I'm glad you got over your fear enough to take the picture! It's funny, I had a childhood injury pertaining to a bee burial, too! It wasn't the bee's fault, though. I brought out a toothpick and piece of paper with which to make the bee's grave marker, and ended up stepping on the toothpick with my bare foot. Who knew something as innocuous as a toothpick will go clear through a child's foot? Ouch. Lesson learned: now when my children insist on backyard burials, we use popsicle sticks!